Thursday, April 30, 2015

CAMP NANOWRIMO--WRITING TIME


Finding time to write has always been a topic for an interesting discussion.  Everyone has their own views on this subject. 

Some people write a little bit every day—an hour before work in the morning, during their lunch at work, or an hour in the evening. This goes a long way if you add it up.  One hour a day for seven days equals seven hours’ worth of writing per week.  In a month that is 28 hours.  How many pages would you get done in 28 hours?  At even one page per hour, that’s 28 pages, which isn’t a lot but it is way better than zero.

The question one must ask themselves though is can they get down to the business of being creative and getting words typed in just an hour?  For me this is not even doable.  When writing I need to wind down, remove the clutter from my mind, refocus on my story and what is going on in the story, before I can even start to think about writing.  Thus, this never works for me because by the time I get all those things done, the hour is up.

Some people, including myself, like to have at least 3-4 hour slots to write.  Once I spend the hour getting in the right mode for writing and start writing, I just want to keep going.  Usually at that point, I end up writing for hours until I must force myself to say enough and call it a night.  I usually can manage to get about 10 -15 pages done, which usually is a chapter.

Regardless of how your writing process is set up, everyone knows the key to getting words on the page is to have a plan, no matter what it is or what your page count ends up at.  And we all know how quickly the days go by, which turn into weeks, and then months and even years.  What will your page count be for this week, month, or year?

Nanowrimo is a challenge for writers to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.  It takes place every November.  In April they have a new writing challenge called Camp Nanowrimo, where you set your own goal on how many words you will write per day and for the month. 

If you are looking for a challenge, check it out. If you’re not up for camp, just keep on writing so at least when the end of the month arrives, you can have pages to count towards your own personal writing goal!